Details about Ubisoft's upcoming Assassin's Creed III are slowly beginning to trickle out, and yet very little is still known about the game. What we do know is that the game is set during the Revolutionary War, features a Native American protagonist, and is the first game in the series to highlight American history. With the previous two games being set in foreign locales, how will this games' American audience react to a more familiar setting?
The two previous games, being set in the Holy Land and Italy respectively, were foreign locales that seemed both mysterious and distant to most American gamers. The unfamiliar nature of the two settings was played upon by the developers to heighten the plot, as a foreign setting would have naturally been more "different: and out of the ordinary for American gamers. Expectations in a foreign land, and a foreign time, are completely different than they would be to a domestic audience. Players may find themselves running along the rooftops of late 1700's buildings, the like of which a good percentage of the country might find themselves currently living in. At the very least, it's both recognizable and able to hit very close to home for many viewers.
The decision to make the protagonist a Native American was likely a very decisive one. As a culture so rooted in many millenia of history native to the Americas, the currently-unnamed protagonist represents a mixture of the old and the new: the Middle-Eastern Hashishin meeting the new world American soldier, with the stylings and culture of Native American life. The choice of race and culture for the main protagonist was likely very specific to the time and conflict chosen, as it will not only bring the gamer to a distinctly American (and more modern) setting, but it will also shine a different perspective on the conflict, as seen from the eyes of a Native American combatant.
America was forged in blood and sacrifice; not against a horrible enemy, but a former government and civil state. While the game will likely feature various Templars, it will likely feature them in close proximity to or alligned with the British empire. For the first time, players will likely have to dispatch British soldiers and agents in order to advance, and those soldiers will be as familiar as ever. Never has the series touched such a familiar time and territory, and never has it done so for a conflict that happened on our soil, within the last two-hundred and fifty years, and never has it done so for canonically-English speakers.
For the first time, Assassin's Creed is taking the fight to our backyard, with our vernacular, mannerisms, and habits. The setting is our own, the history is our own, and the experience is our own. Ubisoft is developing an experience where we get to view the nonfictional bloody history of our warforged union through the perspective of a fictional Native American warrior. And for the fresh perspective...
I couldn't be more excited.